Most of what has been said hitherto has referred to the rise of religious plays on the continent. The first recorded presentation of a play in England occurred in Dunstable--under the management of a schoolmaster, Geoffrey--about the year 1110. Probably, therefore, the drama was part of the new civilization brought over by the Normans, and came in a comparatively well-developed form. The title of Geoffrey's play, _St. Katherine_, points to its having been of the _St. Nicholas_ type, a true Miracle Play, belonging to a much later stage of development than the early _Pastores_ or _Quem Quaeritis?_. We need not look, then, for shadowy gropings along the dramatic path. Instead we may expect to find from the very commencement a fair grasp of essentials and a rapidly maturing belief that the people were better guardians of the new art than the Church. We know nothing of _St. Katherine_ except its name. Of contemporary plays also we know practically nothing. A writer of the late twelfth century tells us that Saint Plays were well favoured in London. This statement, coupled with the fact that all sacred plays, saintly wonder-workings and Bible stories alike, were called Miracles in England, gives a measure of support to Ten Brink's suggestion that the English people at first shrank from the free treatment of Bible stories on the stage, until their natural awe and reverence had become accustomed to presentations of their favourite saints. Passing over the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, therefore, as centuries in which the idea of the drama was filtering through the nation and adapting itself to its new audiences, we take up the story again in the fourteenth century, before the end of which we know that there were completed the four great plays still preserved to us--the _Chester_, _Wakefield_, _York_, and _Coventry Miracles_. Early in that century the Pope created the festival of Corpus Christi (about the middle of June). To this festival we must fix most of our attention.